


Trémuler

by Kittenfightclub



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Crying, Embarassment, Hugging, Javert does not compute, M/M, Madeleine Era, Unapproved hugging, valjeans unquenchable desire to help EVERYONE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:24:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8645998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenfightclub/pseuds/Kittenfightclub
Summary: The man’s cheeks were covered in coarse hair and Valjean could imagine no woman burying her hands in it to kiss those lips. It seemed as though Javert had no smile, when he was pleased with his work a mockery of a grin would spread across his face which he had previously seen many women shy away from. It had on one occasion -their first meeting, Javert’s arrival in M-sur-M to be exact- made Mayor Madeleine shiver to his core.While the man was not someone whom Valjean in any way enjoyed the company of, like he would never pass over a woman in need of coin, he would never pass over this man so desperately in need.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Horatiooooooo~ for reading over this so that I didnt feel supremely awkward posting :)  
> It probably still has typos but, is a little better

There are certain things that you assume in order to insure your own tranquility. You assume that everyone has food because you could not begin to think that one could go without; you assume that everyone has families because you, in fact, happen to have a one. That is, you think this way if you have no food, or no family, or any other necessity. If you are without, you feels a heightened sympathy for those who are also without.

  
Jean Valjean, having known his family and had food for a brief period at the beginning of his life did not remember such luxuries. After his time in prison, he had always been well fed (at least, after moving to Montreuil sur Mer, where he was quick to find entrepreneurial success) but one without the other does not create quite the same effect. Jean Valjean could always find money in his pocket for those less fortunate than himself. He never assumed, as a rich man might, that all is well in the world.  
Upon meeting Inspector Javert, the formidable man, he had assumed that such a man had never known a woman’s embrace or a mother’s touch. It was immediately clear to him upon seeing the man (away from the prison that is, face to face, as equals) of this fact; the reason why this became his conclusion is harder to decipher.

  
The man’s cheeks were covered in coarse hair and Valjean could imagine no woman burying her hands in it to kiss those lips.

  
It seemed as though Javert had no smile, when he was pleased with his work a mockery of a grin would spread across his face which Valjea, now known as Madeleine , had previously seen many women shy away from. It had on one occasion -their first meeting, Javert’s arrival in M-sur-M to be exact- made Mayor Madeleine shiver to his core.

  
While the man was not someone whom Valjean in any way enjoyed the company of, like he would never pass over a woman in need of coin, he would never pass over this man so desperately in need.

 

 

 

  
When Javert was giving his report and Madeleine gently reached over to clasp their hands the Inspector may have passed it off as chance -or dare he say it, the rights of superiority-. Javert bit his lip and managed not to tremble; Madeleine did not notice the expression of pained pleasure on his Inspector’s face.

  
“Monsieur, last evening there was the arrest of a thief, the detained had a weapon, a knife, but none spare myself were injured by the blade. His trial will be next week but i believe it will run all too smoothly.” The Inspector lifted his head to present a triumphant grin as well as a bruised lip.

  
“Oh, your lip.”

“It is fine,” Javert was quick to dismiss the mayor’s concern but he did not remove the hand still covering his own.

“That is well,” Madeleine smiled.

The smile continued while Javert finished his report, their hands were still clasped although they touched nowhere else. So that he could stand a respectable distance from the mayor’s desk, Javert’s arm was extended in a gesture of awkward platitude. Even after he had finished the report the arm remained extended.  
If Jean Valjean were to look Javert in the eye he would see an expression of mock horror upon the Inspector’s face. He was beginning to grow unbearably uncomfortable with the contact.

  
As Javert’s face reddened with this betrayal, Madeleine continued to smile plainly (with such a look he could disarm Javert, it seemed impossible). With so much joy on his face, joy to be alive, joy to receive gifts and give them as he did there then, Javert would never suspect him to be the brutal con 24601.  
But surely that’s not what it was about, that was not the motive for this concern was it?

  
“Thank you Javert,” Madeleine clasped their hands tighter.

  
“It is my work Monsieur, i am glad to do it.”

  
“Montreuil is blessed to have you.”  
Javert did not respond, instead he pondered the use of the word ‘blessed’; he did not consider himself blessed nor did he consider himself capable of being a blessing unto others.  
He glanced up, only to come face to face with Madeleine’s ‘impropriety’: a smiling face and two rough hands -one belonging to the Inspector himself and one to the mayor- prostrate on the smooth mahogany.  
They crossed gazes and neither could look away.

  
“Have you any further need of me Monsieur?”

  
“Non, Javert,” Madeleine murmured, “well, wait just a moment;” he rose Javert’s hand which was in his grasp and appraised it.  
Javert did not shiver.  
“Come to me,” and when Javert hesitated he added, “I will only stall you for a moment.”

If it looked as though Javert hesitated a moment longer it was only to take a deep breath in nervous anticipation of what was to come..  
As he rounded the desk he brushed one hand, his left, along the edge of the firm wood and studied it closely. The distraction did nothing to ease Javert’s mind. Madeleine rose, locked Javert’s gaze with his own soft brown eyes, and embraced him.

  
Perhaps it would have been different if he had not pulled Javert quite so close, leaving the Inspector room to do naught but bury his face into Madeleine’s neck, in order to hide from the shame of the mayor’s gaze, and fist his hands into the fabric of his coat.  
He stood stock still, straight as an arrow except for his neck, which was bent harshly down to hide his face. He was more of a broken arrow considering that fact, it looked unnatural, the ruthless Inspector Javert was meant for embracing no more than an arrow was meant to be broken in half. To make a statement.

  
Perhaps it would have been different if Valjean had not held him for quite so long, rubbing gentle circles into the man’s back. Javert shuddered at the contact and Valjean wished he could make him stop such a reaction and only glean pleasure from the touch.

  
While Madeleine had meant nothing more than to please the Inspector with his embrace, and perhaps lead him to realise the purposelessness of such a lonely life, he had done more than simply give him what he believed was needed. He had done much more, perhaps it had been too much.  
Javert felt warm and realized that he had severely underestimated the cruelty of Monsieur Le Maire even upon assuming him to be the convict Jean Valjean; the heat emanating from the older man’s neck scorched him and Javert could think of no greater pain than there, then, with the mayor holding him so closely. He would have chuckled to himself for his own foolish dramatisation were he not so fully engulfed in the painful pleasure.

  
Javert felt warm, so unbelievably warm, as though he were standing too close to a hearth. He was more familiar with that feeling in actuality, to be followed by the shame of his own weakness, the smell of burnt wool, was a suiting punishment. He wondered what bad would spawn from this pleasure, as though it were inevitable. He could think of no downside to this prolonged embrace, nor could he will himself to desire one.

  
When the warmth became so unbearably sweet he began to sob.

  
Despite having initiated the hug in order to help his Inspector, Madeleine elongated it to the point at which Javert had no doubt in his mind that the mayor strove only to torture. When he began to weep it was only the icing on the cake and Javert curled deeper into his shame.

  
Javert wept silently, for although he experienced great emotion there was also a great fear lurking beneath the surface. He had never known himself to exhibit weakness and yet as Madeleine embraced him -there was something fundamentally wrong to Javert of the fact that Madeleine was embracing him, the man was a magistrate and Javert a police Inspector- he could not help but cry.

  
He kept his face buried in Valjean’s neck and hoped that he wouldn’t notice the damp spots slowly growing on his blouse. When it became clear that Valjean definitely notice, Javert flushed with shame.

  
Embarrassed, he tried to pull himself away, but Valjean held him fast, softly humming into Javert’s hair. Only after a few minutes of Javert biting his lip he was able to staunch the ragged sobs, above him he heard Valjean murmur into his hair a prayer.

 

  
“Javert,” and Javert could hear the smile in his voice, but when he spoke again it wasn’t a murmur against soft skin, it was an order.  
“Look at me.”

  
Javert wished he could resist.

 

  
Javert fixes Madeleine with the toughest smirk he can muster; he tries to look intimidating rather than debauched, he tries to glare, to be normal, or at least his normal self, he tries to inspire respect and he fails even at that which has come so easy to him throughout his life. Javert looks his superior in the eye, hiccups out a final sob, and flushes.

Madeleine now cannot keep that gaze, he had wanted Javert to see the undying devotion -that which he felt for every creature on the Earth- in his eyes. He could forget in these moments that he had ever been 24601, a soft touch and Valjean would melt; it was worth it to lose himself to help others.  
But, Javert did not look at him with confusion and disdain as he had expected; the look that Javert gave him was one of weakness and of shame.

  
Their hands were no longer clasped, but Javert, all iron self control would not raise a hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. He looked Madeleine head on and Jean Valjean could no longer forget him.  
In Toulon he had once desired to break a guard, no particular one, he had wanted to see fear and shame and he wanted them to beg and lose that stone control. He had once desired to crush steady fingers with that guard’s own cudgel and savor the tears and cries. He had once desired much more than that, the prisoners at Toulon were so starved for- Valjean brushed away the thought.

  
“Javert.”

  
The expression on Javert’s face was too similar to that mask of pain and it brought Valjean back to himself. Who was he to help Javert when the man had given him nothing? He asked himself to detract from the shame of the real question.

  
He had broken Javert with such a simple touch, he had allowed the man to weep into his shoulder unchecked. Jean Valjean had broken the stony facade, the pillars to which Javert held himself: control, restraint, self loathing. Javert’s eyes were green and bright, he noticed, and shining with tears. There was something broken, shattered behind them and Valjean could not think; he did not know how to fix this.

  
He waited for Javert to speak, to ask once again ‘is that all you will require of me?’, but he did not, would not open his mouth.  
This time Valjean could not stand it and he rose to the occasion.

“That is all I will require of you Inspector.”

Javert looked up with him with those green eyes and gently wiped the tears from them; he looked so lost, but Valjean could do nothing for now they were both lost. Valjean’s assistance had maimed more than helped, he had nothing left to try.

  
“You may leave.”


End file.
